Mayor Carlos Alvarez was ousted Tuesday by voters angry over a property tax rate increase and salary raise for county employees in a county struggling to recover from the recession.

With 100 percent of precinct votes counted, 88 percent voted to oust the mayor, making Miami-Dade the most populous area, with more than 2.5 million people, ever to recall a local official. Just 12 percent of the 204,500 who cast ballots were in favor of allowing Alvarez to finish his second term, which ends in 2012.

So what now? It would seem that Mayor Carlos Alvarez is a Republican right? A Republican who acted like a Democrat and raised taxes which infuriated people. So he is gone, what fills the void? Does this mean the Democrats have a good shot at taking over here?

They’ll hold a special election for the remainder of the term (for which Alvarez may run in, although after getting rejected by almost 90% of those voting, that would be dumb). I can’t fathom why they didn’t hold it in the same election.

8
posted on 03/15/2011 8:36:36 PM PDT
by fieldmarshaldj
(~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Amber Lamps !"~~)

Marco Rubio should resign from the Senate, Run for Mayor, and have the Governor appoint a Conservative replacement for him. Time to start playing hardball. Rubio can run again in another state for Senator next year.

A lot of Cuban-American Republicans act like RINOs - Mel Martinez, Rep. Illena Ros-Leithen, the Rep. Diaz-Balart brothers (plural like those mexican american house sisters in CA) not to be confused with the Diaz brothers in Scarface. Another supposed conservative who is soft on the border.

I think this Mayor also got dumped because they taxed for a new baseball stadium for the Marlins even though their attendance is poor. I have a relative down in Key West who mentioned this.

My local School District has a levy for just over that amount in store for my city. They do not understand that people are out of work, unable to sell their homes or move, are in foreclosure, or at a minimum, financially strapped; regardless of how much they make.

Gas and food costs are up, up, up! Wages and property values are down, yet they demand more from the private sector? Goodness.

“My local School District has a levy for just over that amount in store for my city. They do not understand that people are out of work, unable to sell their homes or move, are in foreclosure, or at a minimum, financially strapped; regardless of how much they make.”

They certainly understand you cannot sell your home and move; that is WHY they are able to keep increasing taxes. Even worse, prior to the housing meltdown, those taxes increases (at least here in NJ, among the highest property taxes in the nation) were such a drag on home prices. Who wants to buy a house in a so-so neighborhood with taxes of $8K annually? When you own it outright you’ll still pay $650+ per month to live their...

Anyone under thirty who hasn’t bought a home yet is smart enough to make sure they never do; at least here in NJ, any fed. income tax benefit is more than offset by very high property taxes. Now that the younger generations seem to have sworn off breeding, why would they expose themselves to such robbery? Also, they’ll keep the mobility to follow their jobs from state to state (or another country) as we become China.

I think this Mayor also got dumped because they taxed for a new baseball stadium for the Marlins even though their attendance is poor. I have a relative down in Key West who mentioned this.

Nope. Not one penny of current property taxes goes to the stadium. The bonds will be repaid by the existing 6% hotel bed tax (paid almost exclusively by tourists,) 1% of which is designated for sports facilities. Only in the future event that bed tax revenues are insufficient will any general revenues be used. No part of any property tax increase was due to the stadium.

But, don't let your or your relative's lack of knowledge stop you from engaging in inaccurate and unfounded speculation.

Have all of you read about the guy who led the recall campaign against the mayor? His name is Norman Braman, a son of immigrants, who grew up in Philly and apparently rose from water boy for the Philadelphia Eagles to the team's president(?!). He would later sell the team in 1994 and then make a fortune owning a fleet of car dealerships!

Previously, he was successful in an ANTI-TAX campaign that would have increase the city's sales tax in order to fund (get this) a renovation of the Miami Dolphins football stadium. All this is from Wikipedia. This is some American story!

Hey, Norman Braman's my kinda guy. Miamians should smarten up and nominate HIM as mayor! Sounds like someone that can take care of business down there.

Marco Rubio should resign from the Senate, Run for Mayor, and have the Governor appoint a Conservative replacement for him. Time to start playing hardball. Rubio can run again in another state for Senator next year.

That's one slick idea. If it had a snowballs chance, I'd be for it.

30
posted on 03/15/2011 11:08:35 PM PDT
by Lazlo in PA
(Now living in a newly minted Red State.)

Your version is accurate but he was not water boy. The family owns/owned lots of car dealerships and bought the Eagles I thin in the 1980s. From what I have heard - he has been fighting the crooked politicians in Miami from robbing taxpayers.

The city had a $444 or so million short fall? That is half a billion. Cheap for NYC but still and insane amount of money.

He didn’t just raise taxes, he also raised salaries for people who were already well paid. Kind of like reducing taxes for the very rich. More and more people are getting really p&*^ed. How many people are aware that the top 1% of the population has as much money as the bottom 50%?

Having read the continuation of the article, and then a bunch of the comments it appears a very rich guy promoted the recall. In addition to giving his people a pay raise, Alvarez also pushed through a $600 million sports arena, and the city is over $400 million in arrears. What idiocy. One comment said that Walker in Wisconsin has also given his staff a hefty pay raise. Anyone know the truth of that allegation? Also a number of the comments urged a recall petition on the Florida Republican governor, Scott.

Many years ago, when I lived in NJ, there was no state income tax. Is there a state income tax now? In Florida there is no state income tax, but the hurricane insurance costs are much higher than insurance in other states. I helped my son buy a 3 bedroom house in Miami in 2001 for $120,000. My daughter-in-law tells me the house is now worth $88,000.

So, you admit that you don't know what you're talking about. Thanks for that.

Further, I never said that I agreed with tax-funding (regardless of who is paying them) of any stadium. Sports owners should pay entirely for their own stadia. That isn't what happened here, but neither are your ignorant fantasies.

And, Miami-Dade county owns the venue, the stadium wasn't given away to the owners.

The current ownership inherited the single worst stadium deal in all of ML sports. They play baseball in a cavernous football stadium. They get not one dime from parking. They get not one dime from concessions. They get not one dime from skyboxes or luxury suites because there aren't any. Their home games can be pre-empted by outside events like concerts. They are subject to the vagaries of Florida heat, humidity and rain.

Yet, the current ownership won a World Series in 2003 with a payroll of about $50 million, less than a third of the defeated Yankees' outlays.

They manage to put competitive teams on the field, year after year on a relative shoestring. And, in 2010 they attracted 1.53 million fans, despite the crummy venue and their severe financial limitations. That was more than Oakland and Toronto, both more established franchises.

The new stadium will give the Marlins control of their own destiny. They will control concessions and derive major revenue from them. They will have revenues from parking. There will be luxury suites and they will derive substantial revenues from them. They will not be pre-empted by outside events they didn't book, in fact they will control booking of outside events and derive revenue from them. They will no longer be subject to rain or the rest of the weather problems, every game will be played and will be played in pleasant conditions.

In short, they will be able to field a team with a league-average sort of payroll of around $80 million.

Premium ticket sales for 2012 (next season, not this season) are well ahead of expectations and it is likely that the joint will be completely sold out for the entire 2012 season, bringing paid attendance to about 3 million. That number will likely only be bested by 8 to 10 major-market teams.

After the "new stadium" effect wears off, I'll guess that attendance will settle in at about the MLB average of 30K because it's an organization that understands how to put a consistently good product on the field and will finally have more money to do so. But, they could easily sell-out for years, the stadium only holds about 37,000.

BTW, there is no other stadium like it on the planet. Beyond being a state-of-the-art and intimate venue for baseball, and one of the few stadiums with a retractable roof it will have an absolutely stunning, jaw-dropping view (from the stands towards left field) of the Miami skyline. No other stadium has anything like it.

So much for poor attendance. I've already covered the property tax aspects. Got anything else you want to pontificate on that you know nothing about?

Eff Carlos Alvarex, the MDX, and the donkey they came into town on. This asshole along with his apparatchiks have set up tolls every mile and a half on every godamm highway in the county, with ridiculous highway construction projects that have been going on for the last 15 years with no visible improvement on highway congestion.

Next step is to get a GOP fed DOJ to put every last County Commissioner in jail, that coming as soon as the commie in the White House gets bounced out on his ass.

Norman is self-made from nothing. I agree with his anti-tax philosophy. Not a dime should be spent by any government to support any stadium, other than perhaps roads, etc. to service the attending public.

That said, his lawsuit to stop the stadium was ill-founded. Which is why he lost and the stadium got built. The politicians decided that they didn't want the Marlins to move to another city, and so they worked out a deal, all within their legal purview. The Marlins are now here permanently, whether it turns out to be good or bad for the local taxpayers.

His recall effort was much better directed -- at the people who will go along with any stadium deal, other than one totally financed by the owner.

Premium ticket sales for 2012 (next season, not this season) are well ahead of expectations and it is likely that the joint will be completely sold out for the entire 2012 season, bringing paid attendance to about 3 million. That number will likely only be bested by 8 to 10 major-market teams.

ROTFLMAO

You are so funny you should be a comedian, you are funnier than Larry the Cable Guy, Jim Carey and Cantiflas all rolled into one.

I hope you have fun doing the wave BY YOURSELF in the always empty Marlins stadium.

People cant afford $250 to take a family of 4 to see a shitty team with a greedy scumbag owner that has the lowest payroll in the majors, just so he can put more cash in his back pocket.

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